Light said in an e-mail that in addition to being one of a few African-Americans who were active in the Nashville session scene in the '50s and '60s, Banks was "the man you called to put a string session together."

An accomplished jazz musician, Banks also played on The Nashville All-Stars classic album After the Riot at Newport, and led the Brenton Banks Quartet, which the Tennessean called "one of Nashville's top jazz groups" back in 1959.

Nashville String Machine contractor Carl Gorodetzky, who worked with Banks for eight years, also sent his thoughts on Banks' passing.

"He was always wonderful to work with, he had a wonderful grasp of the music we played," Gorodetzky said. "Brenton did a lot of string contracting and advanced the use of strings in Nashville. . . . He will be missed."

EDIT: An earlier version of this post quoted Light as saying that Shelly Kurland founded the Nashville String Machine. Gorodetzky says that Kurland "had nothing to do with NSM. I started the Nashville String Machine in 1980 and have led it ever since."